The Iconography of St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 is strongly informed by the city's French and German heritages, physical features, and place in American history.

Mound City

Long before Europeans settled in St. Louis, the Cahokia

Cahokia

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the area of an ancient indigenous city located in the American Bottom floodplain, between East Saint Louis and Collinsville in south-western Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 human-built earthwork mounds...

 lived throughout the area and constructed many mounds. Though history and population growth would eventually see most of these mounds flattened and removed, the city still bears the nickname Mound City.
Mounds have largely fallen out of the popular imagination, but some projects still reference their existence. The 2007 Master Plan for the Gateway Mall

St. Louis Gateway Mall

The St. Louis Gateway Mall in St. Louis, Missouri is a linear park one block wide running from the Gateway Arch at Memorial Drive to Union Station at 20th Street. It runs between Market Street and Chestnut Street.-Early History:...

 calls for a mound to be constructed at the mall's terminus to afford a better view.

River City

St. Louis is at the confluence

Confluence

Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 of the Illinois

Illinois River

The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long, in the State of Illinois. The river drains a large section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of . This river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route...

, Missouri

Missouri River

The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...

, and Mississippi

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

 rivers. The city was originally founded by Pierre Laclede

Pierre Laclède

Pierre Laclède or Pierre Laclède Liguest was a French fur trader who, with his young assistant and "stepson" Auguste Chouteau, founded St...

 as a fur trading post because he believed the location had great potential in shipping.
St. Louis has long been known for its barge traffic and steamboats. The writer Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 is an icon of St. Louis in his own right, and wrote prolifically about the steamboats along the river.

The Missouri-Mississippi conflucence has been appropriated for many uses over time. The local chapter of the Green Party, the Gateway Green Alliance, regularly publishes a periodically called The Confluence. Lindenwood University

Lindenwood University

Lindenwood University, often referred to as Lindenwood or LU, is a private, coeducational, liberal arts university located in Saint Charles, Missouri, United States...

's department of History has an academic journal also called The Confluence. The term is a very popular reference for local politicians to make when speaking of great ideas intersecting. It is tied to the city's identity through the rivers on the city flag and great seasonal floods.

Saint Louis

St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclede

Pierre Laclède

Pierre Laclède or Pierre Laclède Liguest was a French fur trader who, with his young assistant and "stepson" Auguste Chouteau, founded St...

 in honor of King Louis IX of France

Louis IX of France

Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...

. Louis is honored to this day by the statue of him in Forest Park

Forest Park (St. Louis)

Forest Park is a public park located in western part of the city of St. Louis, Missouri. It is a prominent civic center and covers . The park, which opened in 1876 more than a decade after its proposal, has hosted several significant events, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 and...

, The Apotheosis of St. Louis. The spelling Saint Louis usually refers to the person, while St. Louis refers to the city.

The Fleur-de-lis

Fleur-de-lis

The fleur-de-lis or fleur-de-lys is a stylized lily or iris that is used as a decorative design or symbol. It may be "at one and the same time, political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, and symbolic", especially in heraldry...

 is on the flag of St. Louis City and is used extensively throughout the region on the logos of various charities and non-profits.

Gateway City

The Gateway Arch

Gateway Arch

The Gateway Arch, or Gateway to the West, is an arch that is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri. It was built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States...

 is the strongest symbol of St. Louis, but was built itself as memorial to the already present concept of the city as the Gateway to the West. St. Louis is where Lewis and Clarke launched the Voyage of Discovery. It was the starting point for many on their journey's along the Oregon

Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...

 and Santa Fe

Santa Fe Trail

The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1822 by William Becknell, it served as a vital commercial and military highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880...

 trails. To this day, it bears reminders of Route 66

U.S. Route 66

U.S. Route 66 was a highway within the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926 -- with road signs erected the following year...

 going through the city to connect Chicago to LA.

More than just a shipping city, St. Louis also played a role in the history of air travel. McDonnell Douglas

McDonnell Douglas

McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It formed from a merger of McDonnell Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft in 1967. McDonnell Douglas was based at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport...

 and TWA

Twa

The Twa are any of several hunting peoples of Africa who live interdependently with agricultural Bantu populations, and generally hold a socially subordinate position: They provide the farming population with game in exchange for agricultural products....

, though now gone, were both based there. Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...

's solo flight across the Atlantic was done in the Spirit of St. Louis

Spirit of St. Louis

The Spirit of St. Louis is the custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane that was flown solo by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.Lindbergh took off in the Spirit from Roosevelt...

. The airport code for Lambert International Airport, STL, has often stood in for the city's full name.

A Beer and Baseball Town

The Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

 company has long been a powerful engine in the St. Louis economy. Their ownership of the St. Louis Cardinals

St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...

 wedded two of the most popular groups in the region. The Budweiser

Budweiser

Budweiser is a German adjective describing something or someone from the city of České Budějovice in Southern Bohemia, Czech Republic.Beer brewing in České Budějovice dates back to the 13th century...

 brewery in Soulard

Soulard, St. Louis

Soulard is a historic French neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. It is named after Antoine Soulard, who first began to develop the land...

emits a smell that permeates much of South City. The brewing smell and is recognized by many locals, and is often used as an olfactory landmark altering people to their proximity.